Before I add my thoughts on this, take a look at the picture to the left. It’s by an artist called Takashi Murakami and it’s a classic of modern art.

Murakami says of this piece,“The design took its original inspiration from a large-breasted girl game that was on a software fan magazine that I picked up at the 1992 summer Comike. With these abnormal swollen nipples and breasts, I could illustrate the depth of Japan’s subculture, and the excesses of its art, the psycho-sexual complexes of the Japanese, and the increasingly malformed otaku culture!”

Is it hot, over the top, or is it OK because he’s taking the piss out of otaku culture?

I mention this because Brennan’s article includes some pictures of gaming characters who look almost as stupidly endowed as the girl in the sculpture. Except, amazingly, people take them seriously and don’t realise that graphic artists are sending them up.

I have three thoughts on the boobs in gaming issue:

That character is going to represent me in the game. Games are often wrapped in escapist fantasy. Players like characters that look pretty, that look badass, that look hot — but not too hot if they’re male, evidently. Whether hot equates to looking like an anime fanwank pornstar is open to debate. To me, that doesn’t look hot and it’s offputting enough that I won’t play. Everyone has their own boundaries; I’ll respect yours if you respect mine. If I find examples that strike me as especially ludicrous I may post about them.

It isn’t just the boobs. Look at how the character is posed and dressed as well. Does it look badass and ready to rumble, or does it look as though it’s posing for a porn shoot?

If devs put as much work into every detail of a games as into getting the breast jiggle perfect, that would be one hell of a game and we’d be talking about more than just the boobs.